You may have run across various people-finder websites when trying to find forgotten friends' phone numbers or addresses. Or maybe — as I discovered — a near stranger found out a lot about me by paying a small fee.

If you're uncomfortable with the information that’s publicly available about you, you can try to delete yourself by using one of the online reputation services, such as DeleteMe. I did this, and for the most part it has been successful. But buyer beware: It can be costly.

People-finder companies such as Spokeo, White Pages and BeenVerified offer detailed background reports on individuals that can include contact information, addresses, properties owned or leased, court and criminal records, liens, judgments and more. To access the database you’ll generally pay a fee that varies by how much information you want. Law enforcement, private investigators and journalists regularly utilize these services. So, too, do stalkers, ex-spouses and others seeking to invade your privacy.

“People-search sites have some of the most sensitive and revealing information,” said Gennie Gebhart, a consumer privacy, surveillance, and security issues expert with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “If it’s publicly viewable information about you on the Internet, it’s probably being ‘scraped.’ ”

People-search sites also aggregate information not normally considered public: Our cellphone and Social Security numbers, our kids’ names, where we work, what movies we’ve seen, even our Amazon wish lists.

Check yourself out. I think you will be very uncomfortable with what you find.I was surprised to find that just one week after my divorce was finalized my marital status had been updated to “single.” The names and addresses of my close relatives were listed, as were my phone numbers going back more than 20 years.

CLOSE

USA TODAY's Jefferson Graham explains how you can tell Google, Facebook and Amazon to stop following you around the web.
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Of course, what you see isn’t always correct. I’m six years younger on Spokeo than in real life, which tells me all data must be verified.

Where does this information come from? Too often, it comes from us. With a book list here and an online quiz there, we reveal little bits of ourselves, allowing people finder sites and data brokers to come along and pull the pieces together.

(People finder sites generally provide data to individuals. Data brokers are companies that collect personal information about consumers to sell to businesses, government entities and political campaigns, according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.)

Awakened to the dangers, I started the process of erasing my Internet self.

DeleteMe, one of the online reputation services, provided me with a comp account and promised to remove me from the top people-finder databases — in my case, 23 of them. Over the next several weeks I watched in relief as my data disappeared. From some services I was erased within 24 hours. DeleteMe informed me others could take up to six weeks because they require either a fax or snail mail request. DeleteMe, which starts at $129 for a year’s subscription, and its competitor Reputation Defender, also provide consumers free tools to do the erasing themselves.

Unfortunately, this is not a one-time scrub and done; scraping is ongoing and forever. This is why you need an ongoing subscription or must stay vigilant yourself.

DeleteMe's co-founder and CEO Rob Shavell says no online reputation service can remove all your data or keep it off permanently. But, he said, “by removing our profiles from data brokers we make it significantly harder for others to find public records.”

Rich Matta, CEO of ReputationDefender, agreed, adding, “We can’t get everything, but we can get enough to make you a much harder mark.” And if I’m a harder mark than you are, I may not be the next victim.

What assurances do these services make that they won't sell, share or store the information you must give them in order to erase yourself elsewhere? DeleteMe's privacy policy claims it will “never sell your data” or “profit off their users by selling their info.” He acknowledges users "have to trust us with it.”

It’s important to read a company’s privacy policy or terms of service, especially now when many are updating them to be less obtuse.

Who can benefit from services that promise to remove you from people-finder sites? Frankly, anyone who cares about their privacy — especially their home address, phone numbers and other key personal data that can be used to obtain even more information. I don’t want strangers tracking me down (as I’ve written about previously).

Corporate executives and government leaders may also want various levels of protection. As would any victims of harassment. Reputation Defender’s “Privacy Pro” service monitors data sites and supplies ongoing results — for as long as you pay $9.99 a month. The company’s “Executive Privacy” service, for those “in the public eye,” is a concierge service that costs up to $10,000 a year.

Of course, there’s the irony that to protect your personal data you have to divulge some of it to these services. DeleteMe’s Shavell explained his rationale: “The fewer places that have your real personal information, the more private and secure you are. We recommend you not give out your information to so many services.”

I’ve decided to try to provide my data only to Amazon, PayPal, my bank and Apple. And DeleteMe. I’ll let you know how it goes.

USA TODAY columnist Steven Petrow offers advice about living in the digital age. Submit your question at stevenpetrow@gmail.com. You can also follow Petrow on Twitter: @StevenPetrow. Or like him on Facebook at facebook.com/stevenpetrow.